


Mirrors: An NCIS-1 Story (Version 2.0)

by briwd



Category: DC Comics, DC Universe, Justice League of America (Comics), NCIS, Wonder Woman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28384527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briwd/pseuds/briwd
Summary: Sequel to Countdown to Looking Glass. Gibbs and the rest of his NCIS team from Earth-17 have fled the threat of Armageddon for the safety of the familiar and strange world of Earth-1. As the team becomes familiar with its surroundings new threats arise, from the halls of the White House to the streets of Washington, D.C.. New allies within NCIS and the intelligence and metahuman communities come forward, and Gibbs and his team will need all they support they can get once their existence becomes known to the American people...
Comments: 11
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologues I-IV and Chapter 1

**Mirrors**

**An NCIS-1 Story**

**Prologue I**

**Washington, D.C.**

_\--this is CNN, with continuing coverage of the arrival of refugees from another world. I’m Chris Cuomo, reporting from New York. We’re going to talk now to Dr. Jenet Klyburn, a scientist with the Science and Technology Advance Research Laboratories---_

She gaped at the people filling into the stadium through the wormhole, and she wasn’t alone.

Thousands of the other so-called volunteers in the stadium gaped along with her, yet she didn’t feel any kinship with them. She felt very alone, because she didn’t want to be here, and she couldn’t tell any of the people she was closest too, or even her estranged mother, because it would violate national security.

Those people didn’t seem like a threat, though – they seemed scared, and confused. She might not be able to tell her friends and comrades – yet – but she could help these people.

She still had her faith, and she was confident her God would not let her down.

_Lord, hear my prayer. Please help these people and help me to help them. Help me to do my job but help me to get away from the creeps who pulled me into this. Lead me, to the right time to reach out to my friends and don’t let me get in trouble with the government. In your son’s name, Amen._

**Prologue II**

**The Arabian Peninsula**

_\--this is continuing coverage from Al-Jazeera of the arrival of what can only be called refugees from another world, through what Western media outlets are calling wormholes. We have with us American astrophysicist and science advocate Neil DeGrasse Tyson to explain the phenomenon—_

He shut off the television in the den of his guest house, picked up his backpack and walked outside to contemplate this sudden event.

The temperature was a warm but acceptable 29 degrees Celsius—much preferable to the 52-degree hellstorm in the Arabian sands surrounding the temperature-controlled compound he had lived in for the past 11-plus years. As much as he would prefer to attribute the cooler climate to divine providence, he realized the true credit would have to go to his benefactor’s mastery of ecology and embrace of science, best represented by the climate-controlled dome over the compound that contained its own miniature eco-system.

He had been chomping at the bit to operate openly in the world once more, and was growing weary of his benefactor’s leash. The Demon’s Head always talks about his end game. What of my own?

_Perhaps I should leave on my own accord and put my full faith in the highest power,_ he thought as he walked a tree-lined path. _She would surely appreciate that, as much as I would like to be rid of the bitch. And if the Demon’s Head objects? He and his fangs would never withstand my power, especially if he who is the Head of the Demon blesses me._

Within this particular group of trees was a clearing 66 meters from the path. He made his way to the clearing, emptied the contents of the backpack and began to set things up as he wanted them.

In just a few minutes the candles were laid in the pattern of a pentagram. He kneeled down in the center of the pentagram, then began to pray.

He left the clearing knowing what he must do. His faith in his god, developed by pilgrimages to two alternate Earths, had not let him down since the Siege. Perhaps if today’s events hadn’t occurred, he would be content with journeying to one of them and live out his days as a high priest.

But they were here, now. His work wasn’t complete after all.

_Ô Puissant Seigneur Obscur toi dont la main fait naître les flammes. Que ton pouvoir montre la voie, que ta volonté soit mon désir. En enfer comme sur Terre. Gloire à Satan. Amen_

There was much for him to do, and he could not do it from where he was.

**Prologue III**

**Washington, D.C.**

**The White House**

Before the Secret Service goons could lay a finger on him, the President held out his palm and shook his head.

“Don’t,” he said, firmly, as he straightened his jacket. “I can make my way to the Room on my own.”

The lead agent, a muscular blonde-haired woman, made sure of it, although she walked close to and at pace with the President as he briskly walked from the Oval Office downstairs to the Situation Room.

The Commander-in-Chief entered the Situation Room. The military officers, bureaucrats, staffers and politicians stood, some of them less out of respect for the President himself, more out of respect for his office.

He could have cared less. There was a mess to be cleaned up in Washington, he had said many times on the campaign trail last year, and some of it was looking at him in this room. The time to throw them out with the trash would come soon, he thought, but not now.

“Sit down,” the President said, and everyone standing took their seats. “Sitrep.”

Everyone, starting with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed the President on the phenomenon. One staffer told him of the religious response and of the prayers “going up on your behalf” from the religious right faction that helped put him in the White House.

The President was no believer in God or gods, but he had strong faith in himself. What he wanted now was facts, not superstition, so he could plan his next steps and their path towards his endgame.

**Prologue IV**

**Washington, D.C.**

**Navy Yard**

**Naval Criminal Investigative Service Central Headquarters**

The Director watched the various newsfeeds from the facility’s Multiple Threat Assessment Center. He thought this should be a matter for the DEO, or at least the JLA. But the word had come down from the White House that every federal agency was involved in the federal response to the phenomenon, and that it would be every agency’s highest priority.

He personally was ambivalent towards the President – he was too busy trying to catch real criminals and terrorists, not someone designated as such by certain media outlets – but liked POTUS best when he kept his hands off the Director’s agency.

He felt his phone buzz and took it out of his jacket pocket to read the text.

_She got volunteered. She’s at the stadium._

_Oh no he didn’t,_ thought the Director. _Oh, hell no._

He read the text again. The person who sent it was a trusted friend from the Federal Emergency Management Agency who didn’t mess around.

_Lord, guide my hands and feet, and give me strength to stand up for my people and to the Man. And shut my mouth, so I don’t say something to the Man that might make me feel good but would hurt my people._

**Chapter 1**

**Earth-1**

_\--This is ZNN, and we’re interrupting Capitol Hill Today for a major developing story, in which tens of thousands of people are appearing, en masse, throughout the United States through what scientists are saying are ‘interdimensional wormholes’—_

_\--FEMA has arrived here in Times Square and in Queens in the parking lot at Citi Field as thousands of people are making their way—_

_\--the President posted on Facebook and Twitter the following statement:_

_‘I am following with great interest this extraordinary event and want to reassure all Americans these people are not threats. In fact, they are refugees and need our immediate and ongoing assistance. I urge local and state law enforcement and civilian aid organizations to assist FEMA and the National Guard in all 52 states to help these refugees. As President I have access to information on numerous subjects before anyone else, and I did know about this ahead of time. At my discretion, I informed various local, state and federal agencies to be ready, and I’m elated they’re responding as the dedicated professionals they all are. I know you, the American people, have many questions, and I will attempt to answer as many of them as I can at 6 p.m. Eastern time today. Please join me, as I discuss this unusual event and why it is important that we reach out to aid these people, our brothers and sisters and, now, our new friends.’—_

_\--GBS affiliate KGSF in San Francisco has just posted an interview with one of the refugees online and is about to air it now on its broadcast feed. There are two things from the interview, which we’ll carry live on the GBS network and GBS News24, that are of interest: one, the refugees claim to be from Earth, and two, they claim to be fleeing from impending nuclear war--_

_\--Wonder Woman had no comment when pushed by a WGDC reporter on the developing situation at RFK—_

_\--Jeff, CBS affiliate WBBM in Chicago is going to air an interview with a refugee who refers to himself as Chicago Cubs left fielder Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds has NEVER played for the Cubs--_

_\--Superman has been seen aiding FEMA and Metropolis PD and state National Guard in distributing food and water to refugees here at Centennial Park and also at the Metro Tech football stadium in Brookline. He ignored reporters from WMTR and the Metropolis Post but did offer a brief comment to Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, which the publication is holding for an eight-page special section that will go to press in ten minutes--_

**Chapter 1**

**Tuesday, June 6, 2017**

**Robert F. Kennedy Stadium**

**Washington, D.C., United States of America**

**12:42 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time**

“Boss. We sure as hell ain’t in Kansas anymore.”

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was in no mood to argue the point with Tony DiNozzo, for the stoic ex-Marine was still trying to make sense of his surroundings.

The Special Agent-in-Charge of the Naval Criminal Intelligence Service’s Major Case Response Team stood next to his team’s Senior Special Agent (and his second-in-command) and looked around. They both knew one thing for sure: this was not the Earth they had lived their entire lives on.

“Looks like they’ve set up a giant FEMA camp here at RFK, Boss,” DiNozzo said. Gibbs had already spotted a few volunteers with badges identifying themselves as part of the Federal Emergency Management Association, a federal agency that normally ran point on the U.S. government’s response to natural disasters.

“Tens of thousands of refugees in a stadium calls for FEMA to be there, DiNozzo,” Gibbs said. Both men stood on a platform that they knew to be behind one of the end zones for Washington Federals games at the stadium. Gibbs held his binoculars up and looked hard at the scoreboard, the video screen, and the advertisements on the other side of the stadium.

“We know one thing, Boss: they sure have another RFK,” DiNozzo said as he looked around the stadium. It was a carbon copy of the stadium he and Gibbs had both watched a game and worked a case in. He waited while Gibbs slowly scanned the stadium with the binoculars before speaking up. “Here’s something you’ll want to know: it’s 2017.”

“You mean 2007.”

“No, Boss. A couple of those FEMA workers said it’s _2017_. They didn’t come across as dumb and definitely not the types to get the year wrong…was that thing some sort of time machine too, Boss?”

“I don’t know, Tony. That’s one more question on my already-long list, and I want answers.”

“You and me both, Boss. We’re not going to find them here.”

“ _Some_ of them _are_ here, DiNozzo.”

“Probably…you itching to get out of here as much as I am?”

“Yeah. We start by finding out why we’re _here_ , Tony, and not at the Pentagon,” Gibbs replied. “That part I’m still having trouble with.”

“Me too,” DiNozzo said. He and everyone else on the floor of the Pentagon Mall ‘Ring’ complex on their Earth – codenamed Earth-17 – had apparently walked, driven or ridden through two wormholes: the first that took them to this Earth-1, and a second, local wormhole that took them across Washington to RFK Stadium. “Boss, maybe McGee can make heads or tails of this. This is the kind of thing he watches on TV.”

Gibbs had just found the rest of their team – the bulk of the group was on the field, and Special Agent Kate Todd and Federal Bureau of Investigation Agent Tobias Fornell had split off, heading towards the platform where he and DiNozzo were. “He’s probably as much in the dark as we are, DiNozzo.”

“We need to find someone in charge,” DiNozzo replied.

“Ya think?!?”

DiNozzo took that as a sign to start looking. “Great idea, Boss. I’ll go—”

Gibbs grabbed DiNozzo’s upper arm to stop him. “Not yet. Wait.” He nodded towards Kate and Fornell, who both walked past a stadium security officer.

Kate ran ahead of Fornell, getting to Gibbs and DiNozzo several seconds ahead of the older FBI agent. “God, I’m so glad you made it, Gibbs,” she said. “You were the only one missing, and some of us were worried.”

“No need to have been, Kate,” Gibbs said. “Everyone’s accounted for, then?”

“Yeah,” Fornell said as he caught up to the trio. “We need to find who’s in charge here.”

“Either of you have any idea of who that might be?” Gibbs asked.

“Someone’s in charge, but the FEMA people and the volunteers aren’t talking,” Kate said. “I think they’re a bit overwhelmed, anyway.”

“Too many refugees,” Fornell added, gesturing to the mostly full seats across RFK Stadium. Some people were eating boxed lunches, many were drinking bottled water. Many others were pointing towards the Justice League/Washington Federals advertisement next to the video screen, which was now showing one of the GBS anchors talking with a reporter. “You both saw that ad up there,” Fornell continued. “Everyone’s looking at it.”

“Who are they?”, Gibbs asked.

“A couple of volunteers called them the Justice League,” Kate replied. “Names like Superman. Wonder Woman. Zah-Tana. Red Tornado.”

“Like the people we met on my front porch earlier today,” Gibbs said.

“Yeah,” Kate replied.

“It reminds me of one of the _G-Men_ movies,” DiNozzo added.

“G-Men, DiNutso?”, Fornell said, pronouncing DiNozzo’s last name in his distinct way. “As in the _FBI_?”

“No, not _those_ G-Men. _The G-Men_. _G-Men, G2, G-Men: Do or Die._ Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Hugh Jackman?”

The movie references went over the others’ heads, but DiNozzo pushed his point.

“They’re from Major Comics…ever read The Future Family? The Retaliators? The CrUSAder? Machineman? The _Bug_ – you know, Tobey Maguire as The Bug! You never saw _The Bug? The Bug 2? The Bug 3?_ ”

Kate rolled her eyes, while Fornell groaned. Gibbs stared at DiNozzo, but not with his usual ‘get to the point, knock off the nonsense’ manner. “NC.”

“Gibbs?”, she said.

“They remind me of the old National Comics – of a guy named Hyperman. Another comic, Miss America. They were popular when I was growing up.”

“Then everyone started reading Major Comics,” DiNozzo said. “Those people up there aren’t comic-book characters, though. They’re _real_.”

“Definitely for real,” Fornell added. “Flying men and women. Bullets bouncing off your chest like they’re nothing. Imagine all that power in one human being.”

“Oh God,” Kate said. “If there are super _heroes_ , that means there are super _villains_.”

“McGee’s already brought _that_ point up,” Fornell said.

“No use in arguing it right now,” Gibbs said, in the no-nonsense, stern tone the others were well-acquainted with. “We need to find out where we are, who’s in charge, and how to get out of here, after we rejoin the others.”

**12:49 p.m. EDT**

**RFK Stadium field**

“Here. Take this,” said the smiling brunette who couldn’t keep herself from gawking at Abby Sciuto while handing over a bottled water and boxed lunch. “It’s not much. They’ll tell you more in an hour.”

“Thanks,” Abby said, taking both the bottle and the box. “Are ‘they’ the people in charge?”

“Yeah,” the young, 20-something brunette replied.

Abby thought she looked a lot like the engineer from that Joss Whedon sci-fi show who McGee liked so much. She almost called the stranger Kaylee twice, and figured she needed a name to put with the person. “Uh, you have a name?”

“Oh yeah. Me,” the woman said, suddenly looking like she had to get somewhere very quickly.

“’Me’?”

“Yea—oh boy. Sorry. Katie.”

“Abby. I have a friend named Katie, too, only we call her Kate—”

“IknowyournameandknowaboutKatetoo—” Katie froze, as if she had just broken a cardinal law of her employer: Don’t Let Them Make You. If the other woman was as sharp as Katie thought she was, then Katie had already been made…for something. “Sorry. Gotta go. Other people to help. Just wait. They’ll make an announcement soon. I promise. Gotta go – bye bye!”

Abby watched as Katie took off in a dead heat towards the main grandstand and thought about running after her. _What was that about—whoa. I think she said she knew me and knows Kate? But she’s a FEMA person—did she cross over with us? This sounds hinky, really hin—_

“Abby!”

Only after Ziva shouted in her ear and McGee waved his hands frantically in her face, did Abby tear her attention from the young woman to her two teammates. “Sorry, guys. I got distracted.”

“I’ll say,” McGee replied. “I saw her, too. We thought she was one of these FEMA people—”

“She _is_ , McGee.”

“I saw her talking with you as well,” Ziva added. “I kept my eyes on her but lost her in the crowd. Why would she run? Did she threaten you?”

“Threaten…no. No, no, no. She didn’t threaten me at all. She said she knew me. And Kate. I’ve never met her, McGee, though I can’t speak for Kate.”

“Abigail?”

The trio turned around and saw Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard making his way towards them, stopping a foot away from Abby. “Abigail, I saw the very end of your conversation with that FEMA worker. Is everything alright?”

“Ducky, I don’t know,” Abby replied. “She said she knew me and Kate.”

“Could she perhaps have journeyed over here with the rest of us?”

“No. She said she’s working for FEMA,” Abby said. “It was like she said something she shouldn’t have, got caught, and ran away in a panic.”

“In that type of situation, the person usually becomes a person of interest at the very least, and we pursue them until we catch up with them,” Ziva said. “I lost her in the crowd. That tells me she may be well-trained at evasion.”

“Ziva, you’re not saying she’s a criminal, are you?” McGee replied. “I’m really curious now, but she’s a FEMA worker. If she didn’t threaten Abby, she didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Not ‘wrong’, Timothy,” Ducky added. “So far, she’s only guilty of talking with Abigail; giving her a bottle of water and a box full of food; and prematurely ending a conversation after blurting out she knows two people who, theoretically, she shouldn’t know at all. She’s certainly piqued the curiosity of two trained investigators, a scientist and a humble medical examiner, but she’s committed no crime.”

“I did not mean to suggest she had commited an actual crime,” Ziva said. “I merely meant to suggest that she may be more than a mere ‘FEMA worker’. _Much_ more.”

“There’s something else to consider,” McGee said. “She said she knew Abby and Kate. This _is_ another world.”

“Oh my gosh,” Abby said. “There’s another me. Another Kate.”

“And perhaps, other versions of the rest of us,” Ducky added.

**1:03 p.m. EDT**

**RFK Stadium Press Box**

After flashing her identification badge and name dropping two of her superiors to the DC Metro policemen guarding the entrance to the press box, Katie made her way inside and looked for a suite with a view of the field. She wanted to keep eyes on the ‘suspects’, without them seeing her again – without _him_ seeing her at all.

She pulled out her iCom and began contacting her superior in every possible manner she knew. Facebook poke. Tweet. Instagram. Text message. E-mail, since the federal government still heavily used it.

Katie remembered her superior was old-school – and would have his own iCom, or maybe his Galaxy, with him. The same number went to both devices, and so she called him, as she kept her eyes on the field until she found the people she was looking for.

_Oh my God,_ she thought, as she adjusted her iWear to zoom in on the crowd. _They look younger from the last time we saw them, too. Maybe…no…no. No way. She’s there._

_They have to be a different group._

_If so…what does that MEAN? Is that – are THEY – why the President’s doing what he’s doing?_

She heard someone pick up. _“Agent Stewart.”_

“Marcus. It’s Katie. I’m so, so sorry to bother you. It’s something…something big.”

**1:10 p.m. EDT**

**The White House**

**Situation Room**

The President listened intently to his Secretary of State, Elizabeth McCord, explain the Russian and Chinese government’s positions on the ‘extraordinary event’ that was occurring in their countries, along with virtually every other country on Earth.

“They’re not going to war, if you’re worried about that,” McCord said. “The Russian Ambassador wants to know if we’ll share intel or if he should ask his country’s Khundish friends for even more assistance than they’re kindly giving them.”

“I’ll speak with my counterpart in Moscow shortly,” the Commander-in-Chief said, “after I speak to our counterpart in Beijing and to the NATO leaders. Elizabeth, what I need to know from you first, not from ZNN or GBS, is the reaction of some of the more…unstable…countries to this event.”

“Qurac is warehousing their ‘refugees’ in the stadiums they’re using for next year’s World Cup soccer tournament,” McCord said. “Albania tried to send them back, even after the wormhole closed. We’re still trying to get a read on what’s going on Pyongyang.”

“Keep at it, especially with the North Koreans, and if Langley gives you any static, call me personally,” the President replied. “General, we’re still at DEFCON 3?”

“In the Arabian Sea, outside the Korean Peninsula and in the Indian Ocean,” said General Samuel Lane, United States Army and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We’ve got fighters and bombers ready at the South African bases in Bloemspruit and Durban ready to roll, should Grodd decide to use the occasion to provoke the Sudanese or the DRC.”

“Grodd’s made a lot of enemies throughout Africa, Mr. President,” said the Vice-President. “We really could use Solovar.”

“No one can find him,” said Andrew Munsey, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Not the Justice League. Not us.”

“Keep looking,” the President said. “We have bigger fish to fry right now, here at home. Caroline, how are things with the refugees?”

“Suprisingly calm, sir,” said Caroline Harp, Director of FEMA. “There were some fights in Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, Omaha, but the refugees helped the National Guard calm the belligerents.”

“’Calm’ them? I have a report” – the President pulled out a sheet from a folder laying in front of him, on the table he and the others in the room sat at – “that says ‘a large man identifying himself as ‘United States Air Force Captain Clifford Zmeck’ nearly beat six gang members to death before being subdued by Guardsmen and SWAT members from the Los Angeles Police Department. There is a Clifford Zmeck we know of who was in the Air Force and is waiting his turn in the chair for rape and murder.”

“Those incidents are, thankfully, few and far between, Mr. President. Most of these people are sweethearts.”

“And how well are we doing at feeding these ‘sweethearts’, Ms. Harp?”

“Your corporation’s agricultural subsidiary has been extremely cooperative at providing food, water and medicine from its farms and its supermarket and pharmaceutical subsidiaries, Mr. President.”

“And they said it was a bad idea for a sitting President to keep his businesses,” the President replied. “Anything else?”

No one spoke. The President rose from his chair, and everyone else stood. “Come with me,” the President said to the Vice-President. “We’ve got business to discuss.”

With the Secret Service shadowing their every move, the President and the Vice-President left the Situation Room and walked briskly towards the Oval Office.

“Any word on my counterpart and his people?”, the President said.

“John Boehner and his people are at Andrews,” said Vice-President Franklin ‘Frank’ Rock. The President of the United States of Earth-17, his family, his staff and some of his Secret Service detail were currently at Joint Base Andrews in nearby Prince George County, Maryland. “They’re being debriefed, and fed, before we transport them here.”

“Remember, he’s a dignitary, and the President of an America. Not _this_ America, and certainly not _me_. But as a visiting President from another America, he’ll be treated with the respect he deserves. He just led his country through a horrific war, and part of him probably wanted to stay behind.”

“From what he told me on the phone, his detail didn’t give him the option of falling on his sword,” Rock said. “If it had been me, sir, I would have wanted the same.”

“I understand completely, Frank,” said President Alexander ‘Lex’ Luthor. “I want to talk with the other President myself before I go before the cameras. There are other pressing concerns, though, that we need to discuss.”

“The Justice League.”

“No, not them, not now. I’m speaking of the task force my predecessor set up that destroyed her career last summer…”

**1:11 p.m. EDT**

**22,300 miles above Washington, D.C.**

**The Justice League of America’s satellite headquarters**

From the half-mile-long, half-mile-wide facility’s observation room, it was possible to see representations of America’s past, present and future.

One could see the East Coast of the United States on Earth, of course, along with Armstrong City and the U.S. military and scientific bases on the surface of the moon. If the USS Ronald Reagan or the USS Constitution orbital naval carriers were in the area, one could see them, along with the hundreds of other American- and other national military and civilian facilities and ships in orbit. The vast Trump Orbital Plaza above New York City and the SpaceX Orbital Station above Texas were easily visible, as were the USAF and civilian orbital planes (especially PanAm, United and Delta) flying from or to the surface, and the private orbital yachts still available only to multimillionaires and billionaires like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Bruce Wayne. If one looked way in the distance, the recently completed Lewis & Clark O’Neil space colony was visible, sitting in the ‘L5’ position relative to the Earth and moon.

Space was a busy place, and even though the Justice League Satellite was closed to the public, that didn’t keep those who could from gawking at the facility. The core of the satellite was a spherical hub with a thick torus around its center, connected to the central sphere by eight thick spokes. No one knew what was inside the facility, except for the glass-encased observation room atop the hub; it was clear the observation room was for decoration only, and the real business of the Justice League was conducted out of sight.

That was the fiction the JLA wanted the world to believe. An elaborate holographic system hid the League’s business on the observation deck from the outside world, whether it was talking strategy around the conference table, or its annual Christmas party or the occasions when it entertained metahumans from alternate realities. The U.S. military and government – not to mention other countries – still hadn’t penetrated the holographic illusion, and considering who was currently in the White House, JLA security was more important than ever.

At the moment, two members of the so-called ‘Satellite League’ – there were two other Leagues currently in operation out of Detroit and Washington, and there was the special forces group labeled the ‘Batman League’ by the Gotham-based media – were standing on the observation desk. Video monitors from every American news channel available – including GBS; ZNN; CBS; NBC/msnbc/CNBC; CNN; FOX/Fox News; CNC; ABC; Bloomberg; CBN News; OneAmerica; Sinclair; and (the mistrusted) LexNews, along with local stations from the Leaguers’ home cities and other major cities like Chicago and Houston – were on floating plasma screens. Smaller monitors, accessing websites from major news organizations (like The New York Times and The Daily Planet) and social media (such as Twitter) were constantly updating. The Leaguers had their own sources for breaking news, but knowing what the mainstream media was saying up to the moment was very helpful in their line of work, and especially given what was happening right now.

“They have no idea how many people have walked through those wormholes, Diana,” said Green Lantern. John Stewart was part of what amounted to an intergalactic police corps numbering in the thousands, and the primary (but not only) Lantern assigned to Earth. Stewart, a former architect, was notable as both the first hero to publicly announce his secret identity to the world, and as one of the first African-Americans in a small, mainly Caucasian, clique.

Stewart looked at his ring, which could, in layman’s terms, do just about anything one asked it to do, but had to be recharged every 24 hours and was vulnerable to anything colored yellow (Stewart and the other Lanterns had long ago learned to defend themselves against the likes of yellow power-ring wielders, or individuals armed with yellow-colored bullets). “Those news channels have no idea how many people are down there. They’re talking in terms of five figures, way, way too low.”

“What is your ring saying?”, asked Diana, also known as Wonder Woman. The so-called Ambassador to ‘Man’s World’ from the hidden-until-recently island of Themyscria, Wonder Woman’s uniform bore the colors of the U.S. flag, and the distinct yellow of her people’s kingdom. Among the first of the superheroes to emerge, Wonder Woman was intelligent, beautiful and a powerful force to be reckoned with.

“2,117,066,” Green Lantern said. “I bet the ring isn’t the only one who knows that, either. You think he’ll do the right thing by them, Diana?”

“Luthor? He’ll have to. And to be fair to him – which, given what we know about him, can be quite a challenge – he _has_ been a competent executive so far.”

“ _So_ _far_. Neither of us can trust him as far as we can throw him. And I know neither of them don’t,” Green Lantern said, sticking his thumb out and gesturing behind him.

Wonder Woman turned around and saw two of her long-time friends, and colleagues, walking off the League’s transporters. To the left was Superman, based in Metropolis, who grew up as a human but had long been open about being one of the last survivors of the now-destroyed planet of Krypton. Superman was handsome by all accounts, the most powerful being on Earth, and the sitting President of the United States had topped his list of enemies for years. To the right was the mysterious Batman, who patrolled and protected Gotham as its Dark Knight and Dark Night Detective and had been the League’s prime strategist and investigator before splitting recently to form his own group of heroes.

“He’s _up_ to something, Diana,” Superman said. “I can feel it in my gut.”

“I’ve come to the same conclusion,” Batman added. “We need to combine forces.”

“Arthur’s not going to agree,” Wonder Woman replied, speaking of Aquaman, who formed his own League of young heroes who could commit full-time to the organization, and based it in the first city that offered him what he wanted in a headquarters, location and facilities – Detroit, Michigan. “It’ll take a Crisis to get him working with us, again.”

“He won’t turn his back on those folks,” Green Lantern said.

“No, he won’t,” Batman said. “As long as it suits him, and as long as the eyes of the world are on him. Right now, our two groups need to work together.”

“What about the new League in Washington?”, Wonder Woman replied.

“I’m working on that,” Batman replied. “Still vetting Lord.”

“Let me work on that,” Wonder Woman said. “Kal, can you talk to the Titans if we need them?”

“Of course,” Superman said, his attention clearly divided.

“Penny for your thoughts, Kal?” Wonder Woman replied. “Luthor?”

“He’s _not_ the only one I’m worried about,” Superman said. “Earth-17’s begun its nuclear exchange, and it may be over by now—”

“We’re waiting to hear from Captain Comet,” Batman said. “We also have access to the CIA database, from their own agents who are in that universe.”

“Do I _want_ to know how we have access to the CIA database, Batman?”, Green Lantern asked.

The Dark Knight grunted.

“So, Kal, you are concerned about some type of invasion from Earth-1y?”, Wonder Woman asked.

“No. The military and governments have that covered. Earthside, in Washington, a team of NCIS agents walked through the wormhole when it opened less than an hour ago—”

“It couldn’t be the team from four years ago that showed up,” Green Lantern said. “It’d have to be their counterparts from Earth-17…damn. You know what kind of ruckus that’s going to stir up?”

“It definitely isn’t the previous team, John,” Wonder Woman replied. “The federal government made certain they would not ever come back and J’onn wiped their memories of our world. The federal government from Earth-Prime has protocols in place so they couldn’t come over, again, and so their world wouldn’t be threatened by him…or by Luthor or any other threat.”

“But if he finds out?”, Green Lantern said.

“When he finds out,” Batman said. “We are talking about a man who is former Mossad and former Task Force X, who double-crossed everyone he worked for. He murdered a team in cold blood, assassinated a sitting President, and was directly responsible for the deaths of over two million people almost 12 years ago. We are talking about a man who neither we nor the United States government can touch right now because he’s been given diplomatic immunity.”

**The Arabian Peninsula**

**Ra’s al Ghul Compound**

**9:18 p.m. Makkah Saudi Arabia Time / 1:18 p.m. EDT**

It is one of the smallest countries on Earth, about 500 meters smaller than Vatican City in Europe – and is perhaps the most watched.

American, Russian, Chinese, British, French, Israeli and Saudi satellites watch the compound constantly. Drones from those and 17 other nations fly – with Saudi permission – nonstop, near the compound, but never over its airspace. To do so would be to provoke the ‘Demon’s Head’ into war. And, perhaps, to provoke Ari Haswari, the so-called Son of the Demon, into further mayhem.

The Son of the Demon had been given his justification.

_If they are alive…if they have returned from the grave…my mission is not yet finished._

He couldn’t rely on satellite and internet news. He needed to know first-hand if they were alive.

Haswari _would_ return to America to see for himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_Sometimes, when one person is absent,_

_the whole world seems depopulated._

—Allphonse de Lamartine

**Tuesday, June 6, 2017**

**Near Woolsey, Virginia, United States of America**

**2:55 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time**

Marcus Stewart loved his job.

As the Special Agent in Charge of the Major Case Response Team at the Washington field office for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the former Navy SEAL loved playing action hero, detective, cop, boss and mentor. He loved bringing bastards to justice and, where possible, putting those bastards back on the road to redemption. He loved pushing his body to be as fit as a man half his age and pushing his mind to be sharper than anyone else.

Yet, when the part-African-American, part-Samoan ‘action hero’ took time off, to the surprise of many he often spent it on a Sunday drive.

Stewart, a Cleveland native chronologically in his mid-40s, drove his electric Jeep through rural Virginia. The audio player was off, his phone was in sleep mode, and his watch was set to show only the time and temperature and, if a case broke, set to flash every second until he answered the call from NCIS or whatever law enforcement agency needed his and his team’s services.

He hoped everyone could do without him for the rest of the afternoon.

The drives along the quiet two-lane country roads and the endless acres of trees and grass helped scrub away the garbage and frustration that would build up from his job. The political snake pits he had to navigate through, the scum he came across way too often on both sides of the law, the pissing matches with other federal and civilian agencies he and his team sometimes got dragged into, all built up until Stewart had to get out of the city.

From the time he was a major college football recruit, Stewart would leave the city and its problems behind every so often, to get out in the country to clear his head. It had served him well, so far, and he saw no reason to stop now. Not even a hard workout, or an hour’s session on one of the vintage video game arcade games in his basement, could clear out the crap and focus his mind quite like Mother Nature.

Still, Stewart kept his phone close by. When duty called — be it the all-too-common dead body in Rock Creek Park, or a summons to the director’s office, or the occasional call from a fellow law enforcement officer outside of town — Stewart had to be ready to answer.

As he drove down the James Madison Parkway, also known as US Highway 15, Stewart looked out for a familiar stop as he entered the outskirts of the town of Woolsey.

Ever since Stewart moved to Washington in 2005, Woolsey had outgrown its small-town roots and became yet another bedroom suburb within the sprawling, heavily-populated Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area. Woolsey, however, had laws in place limiting the sprawl to protect as much of the countryside as possible. At the intersection he had just pulled up to, there were only five businesses — 7-Eleven, Big Belly Burger, Starbucks, Jiffy Lube and Walgreen’s — all close together. On his right, he saw a Sunoco, a Sundollar’s and a Panera Bread being built next to the Walgreen’s and Jiffy Lube.

He headed left, then pulled his Jeep up to one of the battery refilling stations at 7-Eleven. He hooked the large cable to the vehicle’s charging outlet, and walked inside, greeting the two women at the register as he entered.

“How you been, stranger?”, asked the older lady, Madeline, a plus-sized, petite woman with a supremely extroverted personality who had never met a stranger in her life. “Been a while since you made your way out here. You been busy?”

“Better believe it,” Stewart said as he poured some half-and-half in his coffee cup. Black coffee, having been a taste he hadn’t quite acquired, went down a lot easier with cream and sweetener. “We just wrapped up a case. It felt great to get outside of the city for a change. It’s been a gorgeous day.”

“Hasn’t it been?”, Madeline said, as she made her way over to the coffee area, grabbing four packets of Splenda. “Don’t forget these,” she said, putting them down on the counter next to Stewart’s cup.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” he replied, picking up the packets and tearing them open, then pouring the contents into his cup. “I tried that Styse stuff last time.”

“The sweetener from Rann? _Ugh_ ,” she said, making an exaggerated grossed-out face that made Stewart chuckle. “Honey, 30 years and we’re still giving them more than they’ve given us.”

“Really? People are living longer and are healthier. Technology’s skyrocketed. We’re traveling the stars now because of them.”

“Yeah, honey, and we’re sending them our blue jeans, reality shows and Lord knows what else with us. You know what? Maybe somebody will get some common sense and put all those politicians on a ship and send them all there and leave them.”

“Now come on, Miss Maddie. Would _you_ do that to your friends?”

Madeline and Stewart shared a laugh, and she walked with him as he picked up a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple. “Marcus, you doin’ alright?”

Stewart stopped and turned to the woman whom had been one of his mentors after he moved to D.C. more than 12 years ago. “I’m fine,” he said, although she didn’t fully believe him.

“Define ‘fine’,” she said, in her calm, ‘tell me how things are _really_ going for you’ tone of voice.

“Team’s doing alright, all the drama’s on the Hill. You askin’ about Gabriel Hicks?”

“I’m asking about _you_. You and Julie.”

“It’s complicated.”

“She ‘Rule 12’ you again?”

Stewart sighed. He had gone for a drive to put that ongoing matter out of his mind for a while. “Like I said, Maddie, it’s complicated.”

“You two need to work it out,” Madeline said. “You’re good for her and she’s good for you.”

“Tell _her_ that,” Stewart said in a near-whisper, hoping the young girl at the counter hadn’t heard any of the conversation. Stewart was a private man and wished to keep his — and his team’s — business close to the vest.

“Give her time. She’s been through a lot, too. What that bastard did to Ron affected her—“

“It affected us _all_. He’s a fighter. He’ll survive. She will, too.”

“Yes, with time and a little space. I would have thought all those years of experience would have taught you that.”

“Every single day I wake up, I realize that there’s a lot I don’t know squat about and always something new to learn. I…relationships don’t come natural to me. Running down the street, chasing after some bastard like Hicks, running a crazed Marine off the road, rescuing a kid or damsel in distress? Playing action hero, that’s _me_. That comes naturally. Relationships? I’ve _always_ had to work at that.”

“Welcome to the club, Marcus,” Madeline said. “Frank and I love each other dearly, and we’re gonna die together, but we have to work at our relationship. You give of yourself. You talk to your partner. You _never_ take things for granted. Every couple’s relationships have their ups and downs. Stick with it. Stick with her.”

Stewart decided there was nothing he could say in response to the woman who had been like an aunt to him for the past dozen years. He also decided that thinking about the woman whom he had loved longer wasn’t going to lead anywhere but to a place of frustration, and this impromptu drive was about clearing his psyche. He took his coffee, sandwich and fruit to the register, paid with his smartphone, and went on his way. Madeline knew where, and how, to reach him if she wanted to follow up, and he knew she inevitably would do so.

He looked up at the blank 8K video screen near the entrance that usually had on a news channel, or a talk show, or a ball game. “TV’s on the fritz?”

“It’s a cheap ol’ TV we got from Wal-Mart. Bo” – the local 7-Eleven franchisee – “paid 200 bucks for it. It went out yesterday. I told him to get something better; I think he’s at Costco looking for a 300-dollar screen.”

“You know what they say, Miss Maddie. ‘You get what you pay for’. Probably aren’t missing anything, anyway. You see one Dr. Phil episode you’ve seen them all.”

“And you see one talking head on ZNN or Luthor’s news channel, you’ve seen them all,” Madeline said, as she reached up to give Stewart a hug. “Go enjoy yourself, Marcus. Go see a movie.”

“Not a bad idea,” Stewart said, before telling her she’d send her and her husband a text later on. He got back on the road and considered driving on to Catharpin, but his gut told him to go south into Haymarket, towards the Interstate. He reasoned that maybe he could finally catch the _Retaliators: Infinitude War_ movie in 360 degree, 12K 3D; he’d always liked Robert Downey Jr. as Machinehead. That alone would be worth the $30 matinee ticket.

His watch flashed and his phone buzzed. On the third buzz, Stewart quickly pulled off the side of the road and pulled into the back of a Giant Food parking lot.

“Stewart.”

_“Marcus. It’s Katie.”_

Katherine ‘Katie’ Yates, the Chief Forensics Scientist of NCIS since 2008, was as close to Stewart as a sister and brother could be, and she never bothered him on his days off unless it was to hang out with him, or unless she had to.

“What’s going on?”

_“Are you here in Washington?”_

“No. I’m outside the city.”

_“You gotta get here now.”_

“Katie, you okay? You in danger?”

_“I’m at RFK Stadium, on that thing they recruited me for, and I’m fine. They’re probably listening in on me but it’s all over the news. There’s something you and Julie need to see.”_

“What’s all over the news, Booger?” ‘Booger’ was his nickname for the thirty-something woman whose expertise was highly sought after by those inside and outside NCIS. “There a case?”

“ _There_ will _be_ ,” Katie replied, after a long pause. “ _Do you have your audio player on?”_

“Off. Tell me what’s going on?” Katie told Stewart about the rings appearing all over the nation and, now, the world. “Okay, but what’s going on at RFK?”

_“Oh God, Marcus, I bet they want to keep it secret—”_

“But you called me.”

_“Yeah, I did, right? Ohmigod, I’m going to be in trouble with Maurice. The DEO—”_

“You let _me_ worry about him. And about the DEO,” Stewart said. “Tell me what you saw there.”

“ _It’s_ them, _Marcus. I have eyes on them. I’m in one of the DC United suites._ They’re in _the stadium_ \--.”

“Who’s ‘them’?”

“ _Them_.”

“You gotta give me a little more than that, Booger.”

_“Gibbs. His team. They’re like 60 feet away from me.”_

“That’s impossible,” Stewart said. “Take a picture.”

“Hold on,” she said. Under a half-minute later he got a text with a photo attached; he tapped on the attachment and spent the next minute looking closely at each individual in the picture.

_What in Hell am I looking at?_ he pondered, looking more closely at the people in the photo. _That was four years ago. There’s no way they could’ve come back here. It got set up so that they couldn’t get back here._

_“They’re younger, Marcus,”_ Katie said.

Gibbs was in the photo, along with DiNozzo, McGee, Sciuto, Mallard and Palmer. The blond-haired woman who was there last time — Bishop, the one whose death still haunted Stewart and the rest of his team — wasn’t.

He looked again. Another man, as old as Gibbs, but balding, had FBI written all over him. There was a familiar-looking woman and child on either side of him. An older woman, being held up by a college-aged woman, were behind them.

He looked in the crowd behind them. _Stan? Stan Burley? And is that Mike Franks? What the hell?_

Then, there were the two women near Gibbs. Recognizing both, Stewart felt as if he had just been shot in the gut with a taser. _His_ sister. And, Julie’s sister… _her_.

“ _She’s_ there, _Marcus_ ,” Katie said, as if she had been reading his mind. _“Oh my gosh, Julie’s gonna freak—“_

“Katie,” he said, in the tone he used when his excitable forensics analyst got too excitable, “tell me again what — _who_ — you see.”

“ _Okay_ ,” she said, calmly enough. “ _I see most of the people we met four years ago…hey. I see that lady_.”

“What lady?”

“ _Diane Templeton. Remember that case a few years ago? She didn’t know anywhere else to go. We talked in the lab. She had a teenage daughter who wanted to be a federal agent. Ms. Templeton said she wanted her to be an executive, or a lawyer_ —“

“Katie. You see a kid with these people?”

“ _Yeah. Holding the guy’s hand. She looks, nine? I dunno_ … _OH MY GOD_. _That’s the father_.”

“Fornell,” Stewart whispered. Ron Sacks had often mentioned Tobias Fornell over the years.

“ _Ms. Templeton’s ex-husband_ ,” Katie replied.

“Would the girl be…his daughter? But why is Templeton with them?”

“ _What if…Marcus, what if she’s not the Diane Templeton we met? What if she’s another Diane Templeton?_ ”

“That’s a good question,” he said. “Someone else. What world did you say those people in the stadium were supposed to be from?”

_“Earth-17, I think, or that’s what the scuttlebutt says. The FEMA people running this thing aren’t saying anything.”_

“Katie, I’ll call Julie, and then Brooke, Carl and Dorney; they’re closer to you than I am right now,” Stewart said. “I’m headed there now, but I’ll have to call in a favor. Traffic’s already starting to get bad.”

_“It’s rush hour.”_

“Yeah. You stay out in the open, too. That’s an order.”

_“I don’t think anyone here wants to—”_

“That’s an order. Go out the front of that press box and through the stands. Stay out in public and get to the lower stands – where the 50-yard-line would be for a Federals game. “

“ _Okay_ ,” she said. “ _Marcus, what do I do if they find me? What if they want to talk to me? Do I ignore them?”_

“If they see you and want to talk to you, then talk to them. Make _them_ come to _you_. Talk to them. Might be one of the only chances we get…if they’re who we _think_ they are. In the meantime, you stay on the line with me while I make my other calls.”

Stewart sped onto the Interstate 66 straight into rush hour on a Tuesday afternoon. Pulling onto the on-ramp, he pushed a button that called up the AAA map of the area with traffic patterns; the immediate area showed normal traffic, and heavier traffic around Bull Run National Park. After calling his Senior Special Agent and SSA-in-Training, Stewart realized he probably would have to make another call for extraction.

“I’m calling Julie now,” he said to Katie. “She’s not picking up.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names._

\--Unknown

**Tuesday, June 6, 2007**

**Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.A.**

**3:15 p.m. EDT**

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

Juliana Fern Todd _had_ been sound asleep on her couch.

The Senior Special Agent for NCIS’s Major Case Response Team based out of Washington was supposed to be taking the day off. The NCIS Chief Psychologist called it her mental health day; Julie told anyone who asked “it’ll be my Me day. Just me, a nice glass of wine, a warm bubbly bath and my babies to keep me company.”

Her Me day started with a broken water pipe, followed by her four four-legged canine ‘babies running four blocks down the street (she caught up to them another block away) and by a weirdo who insisted on talking to her about the benefits of the Vulcan IDIC (Julie has always been Team Star Wars, not Team Trek).

Julie’s Day From Hell continued with her alarm system going off accidentally (the cat tried to pry herself through a window), a neighbor who wouldn’t quit ringing her door bell until she was assured Julie wasn’t dying (Julie assured her “no, Alma, I’m not dying nor do I plan on doing so anytime soon”) and culminated in an argument with another neighbor over the height of the grass on her front lawn.

All that, as of mid-afternoon. It was no wonder that Julie, too tired to continue, collapsed on her couch and fell asleep.

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

Julie’s “babies” – an ageless Jack Russell terrier named Toni; Jethro, the big German shepherd; Claude, the basset hound; Abby, the black cat who triggered the alarm system and the neighbor’s concern; and a golden retriever she named after herself – kept her company.

The basset hound was _his_ – Marcus’s. The others were hers, although they all belonged to her, Marcus and the rest of the team.

They had been fed and watered, she was pretty sure, before she fell onto the couch; she’d get up and take care of them, again, after she got up. Given how the day was going for the athletic, blonde, 41-year-old-going-on-29, that probably would be in the next hour.

And she felt like crap. She needed rest, not misery.

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

Only the Second Coming, or the incessant barking of her “kids”, could wake Julie from her slumber – that, and the ringtone on her NCIS-issued smartphone.

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

“I hear it, I hear ya,” she muttered, as Julie the golden retriever began licking her face. Julie the dog had woken up Julie the human that way several times; sometimes Julie the human wiped her face afterwards.

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

“C’mon. Stop it,” she said, as she fully woke up, realizing all of her kids were next to her, and that her phone was ringing.

_WOOF WOOF WOOF_

The phone would not stop ringing, she decided. Whoever was on the line could be anybody. Whether she was ‘fake-nice’, snarky, or in an ass-kicking mood depended on who was calling her without leaving a voicemail.

She hit the green button on the screen and put the phone on speaker. “This is _Very_ Special Agent Juliana Rose Todd,” she said in a mock-happy voice.

_“Julie. It’s Marcus.”_

_Damn it. The last man on Earth I want to talk to right now._ “Hey, Marcus. I, ah, can I call you back—”

“ _We caught a case_ ,” he said, and this time she swore for real, glad her mother wasn’t there to hear her use the f-word. As always, he took Julie and her quirks in stride. “ _How soon can you be ready?”_

“A case? We have the day _off_ ,” Julie said, as Toni the terrier jumped in her lap before she could get up and stretch. “Rock Creek Park or Norfolk or whatever, Balboa can handle. He came back for stuff like that—”

“ _Julie, it’s not that kind of case_ ,” Stewart replied, filling her in on what Katie Yates had told her. “ _Here’s the thing…Katie tells me the people are different._ ”

A chill shot up Julie’s spine. “’Different’.”

_“This isn’t the team that could have been that we met in 2014. This is the team that could have been from…if Haswari hadn’t done what he done.”_

Julie figured out the implication moments later. “Marcus. Is _she_ —”

“ _Katie says she is. Katie talked to the girl who looked like Abby Sciuto. Katie saw them all. Including the Mossad officer. She saw Mike Franks. Katie saw her—”_

“Kate.”

“ _Yeah_.”

“My twin sister is dead, Marcus. They’re all dead. _All_ _dead_.”

“ _These people, Jules, they’re alternates, doppelgangers_ ,” Marcus said. “ _Just like before. There are thousands of people at that stadium. We need to get there, and find our people_ —”

“ _Our_ people died 12 _years_ ago, Marcus,” Julie said, with an eerie calmness. “The ones from that other world, weren’t them. Neither were those zombies that Black Hand creep threw at us—”

“ _No, they’re not the people we lost. But they’re_ like _them, and I want you and Carl and Brooke and Dorney at RFK to find them before the DEO or Luthor or someone in this damn city gets the same idea_.”

“Marcus…you say Katie told you Kate was there.”

“ _I just said that_ ,” he said a moment later. “ _If you leave now, the others should get there about the same time. I’ll call them_ —”

“How are _you_ gonna get there?”

“ _I’ll ask the director to send me a Marine copter, after I talk to the rest of our team_ —"

“ _I’ll_ call them. _You_ call the director. He doesn’t like it when we talk to each other before we talk to him.”

“ _’Better to seek forgiveness than ask permission’. Just tell them to get there_.”

“After I explain to them what’s going on?”

“ _I’m watching live video on the ZNN app on my phone, Julie. They already know_.”

Julie reached for her TV’s remote and punched in the number for ZNN. “I’ll call them now. You get to the stadium. We’ll meet you there.”

_\--California Governor Jerry Brown has declared a State of Emergency, following the lead of the governors of four other states: Georgia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico and Texas. During his brief address broadcast this afternoon, Brown said FEMA and state authorities estimate over 3 and a half million people appeared through the wormholes—_

_\--the Dow has not closed, but is down 62 points since news of the wormholes first broke hours ago—_

_\--GBS News has confirmed the Justice League branch operating out of Detroit is assisting local police and FEMA in setting up an estimated 60,000 refugees at Ford Field and another 15,000 at Little Ceasar’s Arena. Comerica Park, which was set to host a baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and the Coast City Pilots, is now accommodating another 10,000 refugees—_

_\--taking Superman’s suggestions and opening up convention space in downtown Atlanta, along with Philips Arena and the soon-to-be demolished Georgia Dome—_

_\--some surprising news here in London: two men claiming to be the late John Lennon and Freddie Mercury have met with Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney—_

_\--the liberal news media won’t give my guest the time of day, but I will! He’s asking a very good question: are these ‘refugees’ aliens in disguise? Perhaps, Appellaxians? HMMMM….--_

_\--the White House has no comment yet on the developing story other than ‘President Luthor is monitoring the situation and will address the nation at 6 p.m. Eastern’--_

**3:24 p.m.**

**Washington, D.C.**

**The Navy Yard**

**NCIS Headquarters**

Special Agent Carl Long patiently waited to go through security at the facility’s main entrance, thankful he had thought to get himself and his teammates some coffee, and that he had put the four cups in a box.

“You’re good, sir,” the guard said to the tall, muscular Black man who had been mistaken by the occasional visitor as an actor from a Major Comics Netflix streaming show. He took that, and the ribbing from his teammates, in stride.  
  
Right now wasn’t the time for levity, though. Something crazy was going down, and he had the gut feeling that something he’d leave for the capes to deal with would be _his_ problem to deal with, too.

The four video screens above the elevator showed CNN host Wolf Blitzer, shots of talking heads on msnbc, Senator Mitch McConnell on Fox News Channel and a shot of the New York Stock Exchange from LexNews. _More talking heads_ , he thought. Same old, same old.

He briefly pondered checking his iPhone for messages, but since he had set it to receive only work-related texts and calls – and it had been blissfully silent for the past four hours – Long left it in his pants pocket. He stepped into the elevator – alone -- that would take him to the third floor, and to the MCRT’s bullpen.

_I was looking forward to a nice, quiet day_ , he thought, as the elevator made its way upward. _Haven’t had many of those in awhile._

The doors opened onto a third floor in a state of frantic activity; three people brushed past him without excusing themselves, all talking on their mobile devices. He stepped out as four more people hurried past him into the elevator, and he took in the scene: anyone on the floor was either talking on a phone, or into a monitor, or looking at one of the video monitors.

Long turned to the large monitor to his left, the one above the portraits of the criminals making up the NCIS Most Wanted List – among them Ari Haswari, Ra’s al Ghul, the second Joker, Paloma Reynosa, and Marcel Janvier – and saw what looked like a science-fiction video show. He looked closer and saw the chryon noting the broadcast was an ABC News Special Report showing a wormhole appearing in the middle of the Navy Pier in Chicago.

“Special Agent Long!” he heard, turning to his right to see Special Agent Marcel Balboa. “That’s happening all over the world, Carl.”

“Not just the country?”

“No. It started happening about four hours ago. Things blew up within the last half-hour.”

“That’s when I noticed people starting to talk about it.”

“It hit a whole lot of people by surprise. And a lot of people weren’t told what was going on. We think the big man was one of them.”

Long turned around and looked towards the stairs, and the Multiple Threat Assessment Centre at the top of them, and towards the office of Director Maurice Drake he knew was in the hallway past the MCRT. “Maurice usually is on top of things.”

“He may be on top of this too, or not. He may be trying to catch up. He’s walked in and out of that MCRT upstairs three times in the past hour.”

“Thanks. You hear from Marcus or Julie yet?”

“No – but Brooke and Dorney have.”

“They should’ve called me, too.”

“Check your phone.”

Long pulled his phone out and saw that it was in low-power mode. “Dammit,” he muttered. “That’s why I haven’t heard from them. One percent.” He held the display up and pointed to the icon showing the battery was down to one percent.”

“Remember the old phones you could swap the battery in and out of?”, Balboa said, pulling his battery case off his own phone to hand to Long. Since all special agents used the same phones, Balboa’s case would work on Long’s phone. “Take this. I’ll requisition another, or if they’re stingy, I’ll get one from CyberCrimes. They have a stash of them.”

“Ask them if they have a spare mag charger,” Long said. “You know where Brooke and Dorney are now?”

“MTAC,” Balboa replied.

“Better get up there, then,” Long said as he put the case on his phone. “Thanks.” Long ran to, and up the stairs leading up to MTAC. He expected the Director would be on top of things; he hoped the situation itself would be manageable, and not another mess like the Black Hand debacle – or another alien invasion.

**3:34 p.m.**

**Manassas, Virginia**

**Intersection of Prince William Parkway and Balls Ford Road**

Stewart pulled his jeep over to the side of the road, watching the NCIS-requisitioned Hughes OH-6 Cayuse light observation helicopter land in the intersection, with four Manassas Police vehicle blocking traffic in all directions. He saw a Marine run right towards him, grabbed his go bag and ran out, meeting the Marine halfway.

“Lieutenant Juan Montano Jr., sir, here to take your keys and drive your vehicle back to the Navy Yard,” the Marine said as Stewart handed him the key fob. The OH-6 had not powered down.

“That thing behind you looks like it came out of a M*A*S*H episode,” Stewart said.

“That may be, sir, but she’s good and sturdy and gets the job done,” the lieutenant said.

“Don’t wreck my jeep and enjoy the weather; it’s a nice day out,” Stewart said, running to the OH-6. “The way traffic looked going into D.C., we may actually beat you there.”

He got inside the vintage helicopter, and shook the hand of the pilot, Lieutenant Erin Turner. “Thanks for the ride, Lieutenant, though I’ve got to admit I expected something a little newer.”

“Don’t let appearances fool you, sir. ’Jessie’ will get you where you need to go safe and sound – and fast. We’ll land near the FEMA camp near the north end of the stadium, Agent Stewart,” she said as the copter lifted off the pavement and headed east. “ETA” – estimated time of arrival – “is 30 to 35 minutes.”

“We _are_ a long way from Washington,” he said. “But a half-hour?”

“Jessie may be… _seasoned_ , sir, but she can go, up to 175 miles an hour. We won’t go quite that fast, but just about.”

“Do I want to ask?”

“Let me put it this way…if she was a stock car, Jessie’d wake them boys and girls up and give them a _race_.”

**3:39 p.m.**

**RFK Stadium**

While his team talked amongst themselves on what their next move should be, Gibbs looked at the stands, in particular the press box. There was something different about it, from when and DiNozzo went to the RFK Stadium they knew to see the Redskins from their own world play.

He thought he remembered the press box hanging over the lower deck. The press box he was staring at didn’t have club seats directly underneath it, like the ones the Redskins built in--

_My world._

He noticed five different types of people in the club seats and press facilities, but he only was interested in the one person who had been watching his people and himself since they had arrived.

“Boss? Boss? Where are you going?”, DiNozzo called out as Gibbs walked away. DiNozzo, Kate Todd, Mike Franks and Jimmy Palmer began to run after him when Gibbs stopped, turned around 180 degrees and held his hand out.

“You stay here, no matter what,” Gibbs said.

Kate sighed in frustration as the dogged ex-Marine made his way through the crowd, away from she and their team. “Why does he always do that?”, she said to no one in particular.

“Maybe I taught him a little _too_ well,” Franks said to her. “What in hell is he _up_ to?”

“I think we ought to find out,” she replied as she began walking towards Gibbs' direction. Franks ran up to Kate and put his hand on her upper arm, causing her to stop.

“No. We stay here, keep everyone together, just like Jethro said,” Franks replied. “That doesn’t mean we can’t watch him from here and figure out what it is he's doing.”

““We'll watch him, then,” she said. “What _is_ he up to?”

Katie Yates made her way into the stands, trying to stay incognito, trying to adhere to that rule that Marcus and Julie had about not letting ‘them’ see you while you’re watching them. She felt strongly she was doing badly but she couldn’t come up with a solid reason as to _why_.

She looked around for an empty seat to sit in, but every seat in the stadium was taken and more than a few people were sitting on the steps between sections. From what she had heard, hundreds of people had been put up in the concourse.

Some of these people looked familiar. They weren’t anyone she knew or worked with personally; they were people she had seen at the coffee shop, a restaurant, or the bookstore. She suddenly realized she hadn’t thought about the people in the stands; who they were, where they were from, how confused many of them were, how upset some others were.

_What had happened wherever it was that they came from,_ she thought _. What was it like to go through that wormhole that the FEMA people had specifically told ‘volunteers’ like me NOT to discuss with anyone?_

Like most people who worked for the government, Katie had heard whispers of cases of interactions between the Justice League and military personnel with people from parallel universes. _Could those people who looked like Gibbs and Julie’s sister and the others – could all of these people –_ really _be from one of those universes?_

_Omigod. That_ has _to be what’s going on._

For the moment, Katie put the issue of the Gibbs team lookalikes – and the origins of these ‘refugees’ -- aside. She looked around the crowd, this time for who else was here. She reckoned that there were about 3,000 FEMA people here – and not all of them looked the part.

_So who’s Agency? Bureau? Homeland? DEO? There’s nobody from NCIS, just me._

She looked around again and decided Marcus and the rest of her team couldn’t get there soon enough. She’d stay where she was, sitting in the aisles, and decided to resume looking for the Gibbs lookalikes.

“Haven’t seen this many people here since my buddy and I saw the ‘Skins play the Meteors,” she heard a man say, sitting in the aisle seat two seats down from hers. “Came back the next year, when they played the Cowboys.”

Katie realized she had a golden opportunity fall in her lap: _talk to somebody, figure out who they are, where they’re from, anything else that the FEMA people didn’t mention in that meeting yesterday. Like Dwayne Pride said, ‘learn things’._

“I’m not much of a sports person myself,” she said, looking out at the crowd. “I’ve been to a few concerts – me and my girlfriend saw Shania Twain here last August.”

Then she realized how rude she was, staring at the crowd and not talking to the man next to her. She turned to her left to introduced herself and gasped a moment later. “Oh God!”

“Nope, just an NCIS agent,” he said with a smile, attempting to put her at ease while reaching for his ID badge in his back pocket. He showed it, and she stared at the name next to the photo:

Leroy Jethro Gibbs.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways._

\--Buddha

**8:46 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time**

**3:46 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time**

**Jeddah, Saudi Arabia**

Ari Haswari would do whatever he needed to do, however he needed to do it, by any means necessary. Violence and bloodshed were of no consequence to him, as long as his objective was achieved.

He _did_ hold to the concept of overkill, though.

Shooting dozens of people just to be the only one to get to use the public transporter – contrary to popular perception – wasn’t something he was apt to do. He wasn’t the Joker, after all.

Why go to those extremes, anyway, when there was always someone who would help him in exchange for money?

Thanks to old-fashioned bribery, and a disguise as a British businessman, traveling from Arabia to the U.S. wouldn’t be a problem.

Ra’s al Ghul had many ways out of the compound to the outside world, and Haswari had his own that he used on occasion for the various legends – complex cover stories for false identities he had developed – which allowed him to operate in public outside the compound without being recognized. Although he still topped the most-wanted lists of virtually every intelligence agency on Earth, Haswari’s legends had held up well over the years.

Casting a spell, he disguised his face and his features to match the favored legend he had built for himself: Mr. Chaim Benjamin, an Israeli-British sales representative who lived in London, Tel Aviv and Dubai and worked for a Dubai-based company that manufactured Tamaranean cancer medication. It was the legend he used to make his living and help fund the various investments that made him worth 600 million British pounds, if you counted the other 26 legends he used.

“Jeddah, sir?”, Jamaal, the driver said pleasantly as he held the door open for his guest.

“Of course. Business.”

“You are, of course, impeccably dressed, Mr. Benjamin,” Jamaal looked over Haswari and his bespoke, jet black suit and the open collar silk shirt he wore underneath the jacket.

Haswari noticed Jamaal’s admiration went beyond the outfit. He knew that despite the aliens and costumes and the progressiveness of the Western world, Saudi Arabia was still maddeningly conservative and very unfriendly to people like Jamaal.

Haswari could have cared less, personally about Jamaal’s sexual orientation, but it was something useful to hold over the younger man – if circumstances warranted.

“Thank you,” Haswari said. “Saville Row is one of the best places on Earth to purchase a good-looking suit. In fact…you should come with me to London, soon. I will take you to my preferred tailors.”

Jamaal’s eyes lit up. “Sir, I could never impose on you like that—”

“Nonsense. We are both single men, and we are like family, yes?” Haswari said. “I will even show you my estate.” Specifically, one of Ra’s al Ghul’s estates. “Not now of course – I would not be so rude as to make such an offer without giving you advance notice. Perhaps next month?”

“I…I would be honored, Mr.—”

“Think nothing of it, Jamaal,” Haswari said as he reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. “Here is your pay. Please look it over. I believe you will find it sufficient, yes?”

Jamaal took the envelope, opened it and his eyes widened. “Oh…this is…”

“Ten thousand British pounds,” Haswari said. “For your pay for the drive, and for your service over the years. And before you ask, I will cover all expenses for our trip to London.”

“Thank you. I…I…do not know what to say—”

“Say nothing more and continue to do the fine work you have been doing for me,” Haswari said, flashing the charming smile that had swooned many a man and woman over the years. Jamaal was spellbound, then willed himself back into the professional demeanor he took great pride in having. He closed the door for Haswari after the man climbed into the limo, then drove off a minute later down the highway towards Jeddah.

The limo was allowed the use of the highway’s high-speed lane, and Haswari sat back as it sped towards the city. Haswari was fond of Jamaal, and he intended to spoil and have his fun with the young man…as soon as his business was completed.

Arriving in Jeddah 40 minutes later, Jamaal drove to the King Abdulaziz International Airport and then to the entrance for the South terminal. Haswari got out, grabbed his luggage from the trunk, and made his way inside. He checked in and verified his ticket like any other traveler, but unlike most of them, he wasn’t headed to his destination on an airplane.

He took the travellator to the nearest gate reserved for business and first-class users of the airport’s public transporter station.

One of the greatest advances in travel in the past three decades was the development of the transporter and, like many technological advances in the last three decades, its origin was extraterrestrial – specifically, Rann.

It worked exactly like the transporter in the Star Trek fictional universe – it disassembled the atoms of the object it was transporting, living or otherwise, from one destination and reassembled them at its destination. The technology had been approved for transport of foods, liquids and other inert objects in 2003. Continuous testing insisted upon by the major Earth governments had postponed its approval for public use to 2010, but the public system could boast of an 0.000000000000000001 fatality rate. Still, the bandwidth was too limited and the prices too high to keep the general public from making use of the public transporter system, and even corporate customers still limited their trips to VIPs or time-sensitive meetings.

The Rannians helped develop the public system along with similar systems for national government and United Nations use; use by the various national militaries; networks used by intelligence agencies; the systems used by the Justice League, the Global Guardians and the Great Ten superheroic teams; corporate networks; and private networks used by only the wealthiest of people. President Luthor had his own network that he hadn’t given up after entering the Oval Office (although he currently used the network reserved for the President of the United States for security reasons); Luthor was one of the so-called ‘Transporter Twelve’, along with the likes of Bruce Wayne, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett.

Haswari wasn’t in that league, although he had connections who could hack into one of the ‘Transporter Twelve’ networks if he needed to use them. Instead, under his guise as Chaim Benjamin, Haswari would travel as a preferred business customer to the Mediterranean Orbital Transporter System Hub 22,500 miles above Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The actual experience took about 10 seconds and felt like a tingle. Unlike most users who kept their eyes shut (based on a urban legend of a user having their eyes explode during the beaming process), Haswari kept his eyes open, noticing his surroundings fading to grey, and new surroundings coming into view.

Orbital, Earth-bound and lunar stations always had medical personnel on hand in case users felt nauseous or ill after the beaming process was complete; if a user was in reasonably good shape, though, side effects were virtually never an issue. Haswari kept himself in impeccable shape, and so he briskly walked off the platform and to the baggage claims area 25 meters away; he then took another travellator to the platform that would take him to the transporter platform at London’s Heathrow Airport.

At Heathrow, Haswari decided to have a short meal – even with the powers he received from his god, he still needed nourishment – and give himself a short rest before proceeding to the final leg of his trip. His reasons for being in America would still be there when he arrived in Washington.

He took stock of his surroundings – he had perfected the art of spotting potential and real threats to himself to the point where he thought he was perfect at it – and saw nothing to be concerned with. The duck noodle salad at The Sophie restaurant in the transporter terminal was a favorite of his, and he could relax a bit while watching BBC and Sky coverage of what the media had labeled ‘The Event’.

Haswari therefore was confident he could relax a bit, before attending to his business.

He wasn’t perfect, though.

He didn’t notice the Sundollar Coffee barista watching him out of the corner of her eye as he walked into The Sophie for his meal, and didn’t hear her pull out her phone to text the woman who was her real employer.

_Stavro has just arrived and is having a pint_

_Watch him. When he leaves, let me know if and when he goes to the Kennedy or to the Lincoln to enjoy the show_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth._

\--Barry Goldwater

**3:52 p.m. EDT**

**Washington, D.C.**

**The White House**

Lex Luthor was all about power.

He had sought it throughout his life, as a child in Kansas, as the (embedded) Alpha Dog among the most powerful supervillains on Earth, and as the Chief Executive Officer of a top ten Fortune 500 corporation. He now had the ultimate position of power in the free world, as President of the United States.

There were quite a few people, though, who still didn’t recognize Luthor as the most powerful man on Earth, a fact that irritated Luthor to no end. He did the one thing that they could only dream of, though, and he was just now beginning to enjoy the privileges that came with his newly earned authority.

Whenever President Luthor spoke with someone in the Oval Office, he never made use of the couches in front of his desk; they were for those who came to talk to him. _He_ sat behind the Resolute Desk used by Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Horne, George W. Bush and Suarez. The furniture in the room had been rearranged to face the Resolute Desk and its sole user. If a head of state or ambassador visited, he or she sat in an easy chair situated to the President’s right, three feet from his desk; Congressional leaders, intelligence directors, military officers sat in the couches arranged eight feet from the desk’s front.

It showed the relative respect Luthor had for his Vice President that Frank Rock sat in the chair to the President’s right. Rock drank a cup of black coffee, while Luthor had a bottle of water. Rock still had no idea what the President ate at all, or drank other than water, whereas Luthor seemed to know Rock’s culinary and beverage preferences intimately – just like he knew so much about the former general’s life.

“Just spoke with Homeland,” Luthor said. “ _President_ Boehner’s asking questions at Andrews. He wants to talk to me ASAP. “

“I can’t blame him, Mr. President,” Rock said. His respect for the office of the President of the United States was immense; he still wasn’t fully certain of the man currently holding that position but kept his misgivings to himself. “He _is_ the President of _a_ United States. He’s used to getting his way, just like you.”

“That _has_ crossed my mind, Frank. I don’t want to go there uninformed. Look at page one.” Luthor picked up a folder and gestured to the one in Rock’s hand. “Skim through it quickly.”

Rock skimmed the first page inside the folder as ordered. “The updated target list on Earth-17 isn’t as complete as I would expect, sir. I’m surprised there’s anyone over there to send us intel, to be honest. I expected their World War III to be total, no survivors in their CONUS.”

“Their defense shield held better than expected, Frank. We’re getting intel from some surprising places.”

“Such as?”

“Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. Pontiac, Michigan. Cleveland, Ohio. New Orleans. And from more expected places like Roseboro, Oregon; Mount Vernon, Illinois; and Charlottesville, Virginia. This tells us not all the missiles got through. Their defense shield held. I wonder how much was saved?”

“I assume you’ll talk to him about those FEMA camps being set up across the country?”, asked Rock. The VP referred to the temporary FEMA camps being set up for the so-far estimated seven million refugees from Earth-17.

“I’m sure he’ll have questions about them.”

“Mr. President, you may want to reconsider the suggestion from the President of Earth-23—”

“I’d prefer not to use federal resources on this project and strongly believe the private sector will deliver better results,” Luthor said. Rock knew Luthor was referring to his LexCorp company, which was in fact in the final stages of taking over the camps from FEMA. Rock saw the plans four days ago and was somewhat impressed with LexCorp’s plans to turn the camps into their own separate towns, or extensions of nearby cities and towns.

Of course, Luthor stood to benefit from LexCorp’s exclusive contract financially and in other ways. The President would likely face close scrutiny from both Congress and the media in the days to come, and Rock wondered if the public that supported Luthor would ask its own questions or go along with whatever Luthor said. “Before I gave up day-to-day leadership to my CEO, I was involved in the planning. It was a hell of a thing, Frank.”

“Setting up a livable community in months from nothing, you mean.”

“No, hiding it from the alien and his costumed friends,” Luthor replied, with a hint of disgust, referring to his ‘former’ arch-enemy Superman, and the rest of the Justice League. “But yes, setting up communities as well. They’re cutting edge models and my people – the LexCorp people – have learned much about setting them up more quickly and thoroughly than this first generation. Imagine, if Yellowstone exploded – or one of Superman’s enemies destroyed half the country – we can comfortably resettle the people in the other half in days!”

“That’s a bold vision, Mr. President.”

“And I have no doubt I’ll be able to allay Mr. Boehner’s concerns about his people,” Luthor said, looking at his LexTech smart watch. “Marine One should be here in five minutes. I want you in the Situation Room while I’m gone.”

Luthor got up, as two members of his Secret Service detail entered the Oval Office. They would escort Luthor to the Presidential VH-60N White Hawk helicopter designated Marine One that would take him the short trip to Andrews Air Force Base nearby in Maryland. Rock would go into the White House Situation Room below ground, monitoring news and intelligence on Luthor’s behalf.

“Good luck, Mr. President,” Rock said, as Luthor nodded his assent while leaving the Oval Office, walking the short distance to the South Lawn to await Marine One.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**3:53 p.m. EDT**

**Silver Spring, Maryland**

Julie Todd’s mind was focused on about a dozen different things, so much so she almost forgot the most important of them all.

Julie pulled out her phone to call her teammates, then thought to send a text to the group, allowing Marcus Stewart to see it as well.

_TEAM NEED TO GO TO VOICE CHAT NOW_

Moments later, Brooke Conners replied:

_ME AND DORNEY IN MTAC AT DIRECTORS REQUEST_

Carl Long followed up with:

_HEADED UP TO MTAC WE CAN PULL OUT_

Marcus followed up a few moments later

_NO STAY THERE WE’LL TALK AFTER_

Julie sighed. She really wanted to talk with everyone and make sure they were all on the same page, but if Drake had ordered the others up to MTAC, that meant he wanted them there.

A _n invasion of refugees that looked like something out of a movie is as good a reason as any_ , she thought.

She looked at the dogs and at the cat, and spoke to the house A.I. “Computa, keep the boys and girls out of trouble,” she said aloud in her living room, going through her gear bag to make sure nothing was missing from it. Her ‘kids’ – the dogs and cat – watched her nearby from the kitchen.

_“Your wish is my command, Juliana,”_ replied the computer voice, which sounded a lot like the Siri artificial intelligence used on the Apple computers and communicators. Computa itself – herself – was an advanced A.I. created by WayneTech; there was a base version sold to the public, and variant versions with higher levels of security for government, military and high-ranking corporate users, and another variant for those in law enforcement.

Julie’s house had the variant developed for federal agents, with a twist: it contained highly advanced technology – as in nearly ten centuries from now – hidden in plain sight, as part of the base ‘Fed’ model. Julie knew Bruce Wayne himself had overseen the installation; how he got it was the question. She knew Wayne was the Batman, and she suspected he probably ‘borrowed’ it during one of the Justice League’s missions in the far future, probably to the late 30th century. Wayne never told her or Marcus that, but she always suspected it to be the case based on the nickname Wayne bestowed on the A.I.

It had been years, for her, since she and her twin sister were ‘invited’ to go on a wild trip to that far future destination. She and Kate found herself among dozens of super-powerful teenagers, plus Superboy himself, a Supergirl, and a few other 20th-century teenagers she didn’t know, one of them a young Marcus Stewart.

The memories from that brief time in the future had come back slowly, over the years, to Julie. It was more like a trip to another planet than another time. She wondered what happened to those kids and if she and Marcus would ever see them again…

_Me and Marcus. Marcus and I._

_Me and Kate. Kate and I._

_Oh, God._

Julie pushed aside any thought not strictly on business. Computa would take care of her kids as always, so she herself could focus on the job.

_“Should I appear in Nice Old Lady Mode?”_ , Computa asked, her too-pleasant voice filling the house.

“That’s fine,” Julie said, and a hologram of a 5-foot-8, slim Asian-American woman appeared in the living room. Computa would then speak through the hologram. 

“Usual protocol,” Julie said. “Don’t answer the door. If the bad guys break in call the Navy Yard and alert me. I should be back tonight.”

_“I’ll feed and water the pets,”_ Computa said. “ _I’ll even sing to them._ ”

“You don’t have to do that,” Julie said, looking at the clock on her phone counting down from five minutes to zero. Her ride was less than two minutes out.

_“I have a lovely singing voice, I’ve been told, far lovelier than your own.”_

“Who on Earth told you _that_?”

_“Katie Yates. She told me my singing voice was lovely and that you, quote, ‘can’t sing worth a lick’—”_

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Julie interjected, rolling her eyes. “Gotta go. Make sure you feed and water the kids.”

“ _Always, Juliana. Are you at liberty to discuss what you have been called to?”_ Computa asked, and Julie saw the image of her dead sister flash in her mind.

“Later, Computa. Gotta go.” Julie went out the front door of her house, taking one last look at her – and Marcus’s – pets, all of whom were watching from the kitchen.

A minute later, she saw a Marine Bell Twin Huey helicopter land in the middle of the street. She yelled thanks to the Silver Springs police officers who had blocked both ends of the street so the helicopter could land. They’d be at RFK in less than 15 minutes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**3:56 p.m.**

**Washington**

**Navy Yard, Multiple Threat Assessment Centre**

Carl Long quietly entered the large theater-like room that made up MTAC and found his way to the front row of the theater-style seats in the back of the room.

“How’s the movie?”, he quipped as he sat down next to his teammates, Special Agents Brooke Conners and Ned Dorneget.

“Show’s getting started. Would’ve brought popcorn, but the muckety-mucks on the screen frown on that,” replied Conners. Athletic and smart, Conners turned down several opportunities to leave the Washington team. She had a snarky sense of humor and used it on occasion to lighten the mood or throw off an opponent, and sometimes Long couldn’t tell if she was serious or a smartaleck.

“The ‘muckety-mucks’ hate popcorn,” said Dorneget. “I’m pretty sure they don’t like anything.”

“They like peace and quiet from the audience when they’re performing,” Long replied. “Either of you hear anything new about what’s going on?”

“They’re figuring it out as they go,” Conners said. “Scuttlebutt is Luthor knew all along.”

“How _weird_ is it that a reformed supervillain turned President would be the only one who would know?”, Dorneget asked.

“He is the President and the guy who helped get a lot of the super bad guys off the street,” Long said. “Including the Joker.”

“I don’t care if he pulled the trigger himself,” Conners replied. “We all should’ve known about this weeks ago. The level of planning I heard about…you can’t do that on the fly. That takes weeks, months of advance notice to have a _chance_ of getting things right.”

Long was about to answer when he saw Maurice Drake, the Director of NCIS, turn around and put his forefinger to his lips, signaling the three agents to stop talking. Long nodded, while Conners gave the director a big thumbs-up with a smile.

Drake chuckled, then turned to face the large theater-sized screen in the large room that made up MTAC and was spacious enough to serve as a small movie theater in its own right. The 30-foot, 8K screen that dominated the front wall was large and clear enough for those sitting in the back theater-style seats – including the three agents on the front row – a superb view by most standards. It wasn’t as fancy as the 16K, holographic screens installed in the White House, the Capital building and the Pentagon, but it met Drake’s standards well enough. The side walls featured several computer terminal stations manned by technicians, and a dozen 55-inch 8K video screens above the terminals. Some screens showed civilian news coverage, others showed drone footage or a Mercator-style map showing the position of US Navy ships around the world.

The director stood by as a map of Washington appeared on the main screen, followed by four smaller screens in each corner showing, clockwise from the upper left, NCIS Assistant Deputy Director Michael Larkin from the NCIS office in Quantico, Virginia; Louis Ochoa, the Assistant Director for Atlantic Operations from the Office of Special Projects in Miami, Florida; Shay Mosley, the OSP Assistant Director for Pacific Operations from her new office in Los Angeles; and the Department of Extranormal Operations’ director known only as Mr. Bones, who literally looked like a skeleton wearing a suit.

“Where’s Hetty?”, Conners whispered.

“I called L.A. after we got the news about Granger,” Dorneget whispered back. “Nobody’s talking.”

“Callen’s always run a tight ship, just like Torres,” Long whispered. “I don’t know Mosley or Ochoa. Larkin we know.”

“We know Bones, too,” Conners said. “God, what a creep.”

“I didn’t know a skull could smile,” Dorneget replied. “Or that a skeleton could smoke.”  
  
“That makes the creepiness worse,” Conners said. “I’m glad we don’t have to deal with him.”

“Chase likes him well enough,” Dorneget said.

“Her and her team’s job is dealing with weird shit,” Conners said. “I’m glad we—”

She shut up when Drake turned and gave her a ‘simmer down’ look. “Show’s starting,” Long commented.

Drake turned to the screen. “I take it you’ve all read the notes?”, he said. All four nodded or spoke their assent.

“This line is as secure as it gets, folks. Our intel confirms _they_ are at the stadium.”

_They?_ Long thought. _Who are_ they _?_ He glanced at Conners and Dorneget, both of whom shrugged.

“My previous decision stands, regardless of what SecDef or SecNav say,” Drake said. “Opinions?”

“You’re taking a _big_ risk, sir,” Mosley said. “Crawford will not be happy, and I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t speak for the record and state that the director of a federal agency going against his superiors is highly irregular, to say the least.”

“Your objection is noted,” Drake said. “The fact is, our people are—”

“ _Are_ they your people, Director?” Mosley asked. “They’re another director’s people—”

“Call it intra-agency cooperation, then,” Drake replied. “I’m sure Mr. McCallister – wherever he is – would appreciate the gesture and would do the same for us. Just like we did for Director Vance from Earth-Prime and Director McGee from Earth-2. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I might take a different approach, sir,” Mosley replied. “That is why you assigned me to oversee Office of Special Projects West and run Pacific Operations. To bring a certain team in line.”

“You are assigned to run the L.A. office and to make sure the agents there had the necessary resources to do their jobs, Ms. Mosley,” Drake said. “Including any and all issues related to this event that Agent Callen’s team may run into. Mr. Ochoa?”

“Without specific orders to stay out, sir, I’d have to agree with your tactics,” Ochoa said. “I only wish I could bring my team up there to assist.”

“They have their hands full getting Agents Torres and Tuturro out of Corto Maltese. Walker from the Agency will help. I’ve got that REACT team you asked for heading that way from Puerto Rico.”

“I appreciate it,” Ochoa said. His Office of Special Projects team was in the small island nation to eliminate a drug ring that used US Navy ships in the Caribbean to run Thanagarian stimulants into the United States. Two of the team’s members – Special Agent in Charge Nick Torres and Special Agent Johnny Tuturro – were captured by the military officers running the ring. The rest of the team, led by Senior Field Agent Paul Briggs, were trying to get their teammates out alive. “Any chance of getting Charlie back?”

“No chance,” Drake said of ‘Charlie’, a.k.a. NCIS Special Agent Tammy Gregorio, currently assigned to the New Orleans field office. “They’re busy on an op.”

“Worth asking,” Ochoa said. “With your permission, I’ll log off now and contact you the moment there’s movement in Corto Maltese.”

“Hopefully that won’t be too much longer,” Drake said as Ochoa’s inset screen disappeared from the main screen. “Mr. Larkin, you have a REACT team ready for me if it comes to it?”

“If it comes to it, Director, though I’m confident your people can handle whatever they face there – if it’s just FEMA security there,” replied Larkin, a former New York City assistant police chief who was Assistant Director in charge of NCIS’s REACT – Regional Enforcement Action and Capabilities Training – special forces teams. “If security is what I think it is, Director, I honestly don’t think a REACT team would be enough.”

“Speak up,” Drake replied. He used that term whenever he wanted someone to get to the point.

“If POTUS is overseeing these camps, and wanted to keep anyone who came through in those camps, he has to have some form of heightened security in place. Security against supervillains, criminal gangs--”

“Wayward federal agencies?” Drake replied.

“I didn’t say _that_ , sir,” Larkin replied, with a curt smile. “I’m thinking more to keep a stadium of people in – and that’s going to take some heavy-duty, military-grade security. If that’s the case – and you have to assume POTUS has something in place – you might need to call in more firepower.”

“You’re not talking about the Marines, either, are you Michael?”, Mosley asked.

“I’m thinking of a certain man with a red cape who is, ah, more likely to believe Director Drake over the Commander in Chief,” Larkin said.

“I know and assume the risks,” Drake said. “Remember, no one – Luthor, Crawford, Sarah Porter – has told us not to undertake this operation.”

“And what if they do?” Mosley said.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Drake said. “I want to review the non-NCIS part of our joint operation while Mr. Bones is here with us. Bones, any word from your people in RFK over the last 30 minutes?”

“I think Mr. Larkin is onto something, Maurice. They’re probably dressed in FEMA garb. And I concur with his assessment of the security forces on the ground. That’s consistent with what my agent there has to say.”

“You have someone there, Bones?”, Drake said.

“So do you. He got ‘drafted’, just like your person there did.”

Drake winced. He had wanted to keep Katie Yates’ involvement within the agency. But if someone from the DEO’s Major Case Response Team was at RFK, it made sense he or she would’ve tried to find friendlies.

“I know. Got the same advance notice you did. Just enough time to have a bug hidden on her person that bogeys and hostiles can’t easily uncover. That’s how I found out about them.”

“That’s one hell of a mission you’re sending your team on,” Bones said.

“They’re trained for it,” he replied, glancing back at the three agents who were trying to figure out who it was they’d be sent to recover. “It’d be great if your people would come along.”

“I agree, but they’re on a case I can’t talk about for reasons of national security,” Bones replied. Drake knew that could indeed be the case, or just as easily be the DEO director’s way of saying _what we’re doing is none of your business_. “As I said, though, I do have an agent there and he’s at your service.”

“Thank you for that, Director. You mind telling me who it is?”

“Can’t divulge that, Director. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Drake sighed. _He can be the most_ irritating _bastard sometimes to work with_. “I appreciate any help I can get, and I’ll be in touch. Once again, thanks for the help.”

“You’re welcome, and I know when we need help you’ll do the same.” Bones disconnected, and the square showing his image switched to a shot of the NCIS seal.

“Mr. Larkin, Ms. Mosley, I appreciate your time today. Got some business here to take care of, but I’ll be in touch soon.” He turned to one of the technicians and gave the ‘cut’ sign with his hand, signaling the tech to cut Mosley and Larkin’s feed.

Drake turned to the back as the large screen showed the Mercator map, and walked back to the three agents. “We need to meet and going to my office would waste time, so we’re doing this here,” Drake said. “Questions?”

“One,” Conners said. “Who are ‘they’?”

Drake explained who ‘they’ were and gave his agents a moment to digest the news. But only a moment.

“Marcus and Julie are on their way to the stadium. You three go meet them, and bring our people back here,” Drake said, in the no-nonsense tone he used when he wanted something done.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**3:57 p.m. EDT**

**Washington**

**11 th Street SE**

Carl Long drove his Corvette north just a tad above the speed limit, with Conners riding shotgun and Dorneget, and was surprised at how light traffic was at this time of day.

They had no escort from DC Police nor from the military; Drake didn’t want to draw any undue attention to his agents’s mission. Long hadn’t had time yet to check on local traffic conditions, so he could only guess at the reason there weren’t quite as many vehicles on area roads and highways.

Long saw a phone call coming in on his car’s audio system and noticed the caller was ID’d as Stewart. He hit the green button to take the secure call.

“Marcus, we’re making really good time, better than I thought,” Long said.

“ _I bet people went home early or are staying late,”_ said Julie, whom Long realized would have been patched into the phone call by Marcus. “ _Any signs of roadblocks ahead?_ ”

“I’m looking at the maps app on my phone and it’s all clear headed to the stadium,” Conners interjected. “We’ve seen a few cop cars but that’s it.”

“ _We’re hearing the real gridlock’s gonna come later_ ,” Stewart said. “ _They’ll wait till people go home from work. Then the feds are going to shut down the streets to make room for the buses, to take those people to the camps_.”

“All the more reason for us to get there quick,” Long replied.

“ _For now, keep it cool, keep the guns in the holster Brooke_ ,” Stewart said, “ _and just get eyes on our objective_.”

“You guys always think I’m going in with ‘guns blazing’, Julie,” Conners said. “I can play nice.”

“ _You_ do _have a trigger finger, Brooke_ ,” Julie replied. “ _We know you can and usually do ‘play nice’. We’re just emphasizing how important this is._ ”

“We understand loud and clear,” Long interjected. “If we get there ahead of you, previous orders still stand?”

“ _Roger_ ,” Stewart said. “ _Wait for us. If anyone gives you trouble, call us and the Director right then and there. See you there._ ”

“Copy that,” Long said as the screen showed the call disconnecting. He pulled up to a red light and tapped a few buttons to get to its Music app. “Player, play Playlist #7.”

_“Playing Playlist #7,”_ the female AI voice replied, and in moments the sounds of John Coltrane’s _Alabama_ piece filled the car. Long was a jazz aficionado who often referred to the legendary musician as ‘the Master’.

“You’re playing _jazz,_ Carl?”, Conners asked.

“What’s wrong with jazz?” Long said. “It’s _Coltrane_.”

“Nothing. I like Coltrane. But _Coltrane_ on the way to a case? _Dwayne Pride_ doesn’t even do that.” The Washington team had worked a few cases with the New Orleans field office, led by Special Agent Dwayne Pride, who was a good musician outside of work and all business when on the job. She rode shotgun with him a couple of times and remembered him talking about the case or asking about her team – with the audio player _off_.

“Coltrane calms me down, helps me focus. It’s something I started doing after I finished Agent Afloat duty and started working in Silverdale.” Long’s NCIS career trajectory took him from Jacksonville to Singapore; the USS Independence; Silverdale, Washington; and, nine years ago, to Washington. “You play music on the way to a case or a crime scene?”

Long had joined the team the same time as Conners, both replacing two agents who were murdered during a case in Miami just two weeks before former director Jenny Shepard’s death. He knew her as well as anyone on the team and could almost name the rock artist that would be playing in her car.

“Not _that_.”

“You still into Limp Bizkit?”

“Screw you,” Conners cracked, and all three laughed. “Dorny. You got a request?”

“Now you’re putting out requests. You’re getting a little _too_ comfortable over there,” Long joked. “Dorney, you good with the Master?”

“Fine with me.”

“What is on your playlist, Dorney?”, Long said. “I don’t think we’ve ever gotten the answer to that.”

Dorneget ran the tip of his thumb and forefinger across his closed lips. “Silence,” he said. “I’m so used to it riding in the truck on the way to a crime scene.”

Conners gave Long a ‘I told you so’ look. “You should’ve known Dorney liked peace and quiet,” she said. “I’ve known that.”

“She blasts every rock act from Led Zeppelin to Disturbed to and from the crime scene,” Dorneget added. “Loudly.”

“Oh, I know,” Long said. “Found that out from Day One. Car windows down, wind blowing fast food wrappers out the cab, ‘Leadfoot’ speeding faster than light. It’s bad enough going to Rock Creek Park. Imagine going to West Virginia.”

“I know what _that’s_ like, too,” Dorneget added, with a smile.

“I think you _both_ ought to be _real_ _nice_ to me,” Conners said, dryly. “Or I’ll play you Commander Coburn’s playlist next time I drive.”

“ _If_ you do that when you get behind the wheel“, Long said, “then I have a request.”

“Oh do you, now?” Conners replied.

“Yeah. Don’t,” Long said, adding a chuckle a moment later.

Traffic to the stadium was better than expected, and the three expected to arrive at RFK on time.

“You think we’ll have to park far away?”, Dorneget asked. He joined the team in 2011 and quickly overcame his ‘nerdy first impression’ (as Julie put it) and proved himself as the team’s cyber and computer specialist. He also had proven to be a good hand in the field, and found a kindred spirit in Katie Yates (who, like Dorneget, is gay), Conners (who took him in like a younger brother) and Long (his complete opposite in many ways, and a buddy regardless).

“Nope,” Conners said. “We’re NCIS. We’ll get in, one way or the other.”

Conners was a free spirit, assigned to the MCRT in June 2008 after two team members were murdered in Miami on a joint operation with the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Crime Scene Investigations unit. Conners had since proven to be a solid field agent and loyal to her new team – so loyal she turned down two offers to lead teams of her own. She was also outspoken, and her opinions had gotten her in hot water more than once with those way above her pay grade – like Clayton Jarvis, the former Secretary of the Navy.

The Corvette sped down Independence, past the old National Guard Armory. Long saw the first roadblocks well before he hit the brakes to avoid hitting the National Guard vehicles in the road.

“You NCIS?” the National Guard officer asked after Long rolled down his window. All three agents showed the woman their badges. “Nobody told us not to let you in so…park in the Blue Lot.”

As Long drove into the Blue Lot and began looking for the closest spot to the stadium, he noticed eight security cameras and 21 security officers, uniformed or in plain clothes, around him. Conners and Dorneget noticed the same.   
  


“I’m not taking back what I said about getting in,” Conners said. “I do wonder if we’ll be able to get there without being seen.”

“If this level of security’s any indication,” Dorneget replied, “I don’t think a cockroach could sneak in without being seen.”

“Then there’s no way in hell we sneak in there,” Long said. “We go in _bold_.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**4:06 p.m. EDT**

**RFK Stadium**

Gibbs walked with Katie through the concourse, both silent, both examining their surroundings with a close eye for anything and everything – including unwanted interlopers.

Gibbs, of course, was a trained investigator who knew he was in an environment that was both familiar and alien, and he had chosen to put his natural skepticism aside to trust the girl he was walking besides. All he knew of her was she was the chief forensic scientist of this world’s NCIS, and all he had was his wits, training – and his gut.

His gut told him she was trustworthy, and probably the one stranger in this environment that he needed to know.

Katie’s investigative training wasn’t nearly as extensive as Gibbs’s was, although the agents of this world’s version of the NCIS Major Case Response Team had taught her quite a bit about being an investigator. Despite being a ‘lab rat’ – she spent all her time in the lab and rarely went out in the field – Katie was an extrovert and had an underrated ability to read people. She could tell if someone was honest or if they weren’t, and she just knew Gibbs was definitely the former.

Katie was also surprised about how nice and warm the man walking alongside her was.

On this world, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, even now, lingered as a larger-than-life figure with a reputation as a no-nonsense investigator who scared just about everyone to death who wasn’t military. Only Marcus had known him, and Julie and Director Drake had met him a couple of times each, and their personal accounts backed up the legend of the hardass Marine.

Books had been written about his life, documentaries made about him and dozens of stories had been compiled on him by reporters; much about his life had long since been made a matter of public record, but there were so many mysteries that opened up whenever a story was told. Some of those mysteries were caused by unsubstantiated rumors on social media — why let the truth get in the way of a great story? — and some of them were true, their truths hidden from the public.

A few of the stories about _that_ Gibbs told of his warmness, kindness and sense of humor – the very qualities which this man had shown to her so far.

She decided she liked _this_ Gibbs, hoping the hardass wouldn’t show his face (not to her, anyway), and spending time with him was good intel for the inevitable debriefing at the Navy Yard.

“Weather’s real nice for this time of year,” Gibbs said. They had stopped talking about football – she knew very little about football in general, and neither did he.

“It is,” she replied. “I hope the heat and humidity stay away for awhile. Untll July, anyway.” She was about to ask him about woodworking – she heard the stories about the boat in Gibbs’s basement, and was curious about how much this version of Gibbs could corroborate them.

But she had to pee first, and quickly.

Katie saw a long line of women near a women’s restroom, and groaned.

“Looks like you’re gonna be tied up for a bit,” Gibbs said. “I’ll head on, but before I do, I want to level with you.”

“Okay,” Katie said, as it dawned on her what this man probably wanted from her. “My people and I need to get outta here.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Katie replied. She understood his wanting to get out of there – she felt the same way, and she hoped her team would come through.

The line to the women’s room hadn’t moved and she _really_ had to use the restroom. If she left now, she’d have enough time to flash her badge past the guards and try to get into the FEMA-controlled luxury suite section. Gibbs wouldn’t follow her inside, but he wasn’t going to go away either and Katie didn’t want whomever was pulling the strings on this operation to know about Gibbs, or his team, or her association with him and the fact she was going to do what she could to take them with her back to NCIS.

“Come with me,” she said to Gibbs, and they made their way up the stairs 50 feet away to one of the entrances to the suites. The guard started to say something to them, but Katie flashed her NCIS badge and said ‘get out of my way, I gotta _pee_!”

“You’ll have to wait here,” Katie told Gibbs. “Give me ten minutes.”

Inside the ladies’ room, she took the nearest stall, and did her business.

While washing her hands, she heard someone from the other stall.

“So what’s he like?”, asked the very male voice.

Katie’s head whipped around and she reached for the palm-sized stunner hidden under her shirt. When the occupant opened the stall door, she had the weapon pointed right at him; her eyebrows shot up once she recognized him, and she bit her tongue to keep from yelling at the man.

“LARRY! _What_ in the _world_ are you _doing_!?!?!”

A short, slender, thirty-something man of Indian descent stepped out, hands held up. His name was Kartik Viswanathan and he was a special agent with the Department of Extranormal Operations who had worked with the MCRT on several occasions. Katie — and the rest of her team — called the usually well-dressed, cocky, mischievous agent by his preferred nickname Larry, and he often socialized with them off-hours. Larry sometimes got on Katie’s nerves, but they were good friends — although not good enough for her to overlook his being in the ladies’ room.

“Sorry, babe,” Larry said with a smile and a wink. “I’m on the job—“

“That’s not _part_ of your job!”, she said, thrusting her forefinger at the stall he had stepped out from. “What on Earth are you doing in there?”

“Watching your back,” he said, and she then noticed he was dressed in the same FEMA collared shirt and khakis she and the other ‘volunteers’ were dressed in. “There’s some crazy shit going down—“

Katie stormed over to Larry, grabbed him by his collar and — over his protests — pushed him back into the stall, then locked the door behind her.

“Whoa _now_ , Kates,” he said, using a portmanteau of her first and last names. “I _swear_ I’m on the job—“

“You better be, buddy,” she shot back, although she figured by then he was telling the truth. “You couldn’t talk to me _outside_? And watch your _mouth_.”

“Sorry,” he said, and she let go of his collar. “They’ve got eyes all over this place,” he said.

“‘ _They’_?”

“Yup.”

Katie rolled her eyes; she made sure he would never live this incident down in either of their lifetimes. “And who _are_ ‘they’?”

“Uh…”

“Uh what?”

“Uh, as in, _we_ , as in the DEO, don’t know who _they_ are. Yet.”

Katie glared at him for several moments, then thought of Gibbs and the possibility the old man might be outside right then or sending for someone like Kate Todd — or maybe Ziva David — to make sure she didn’t get lost. “So they, whoever _they_ are, are watching us—“

“You, the people. Gibbs. Look, Kates, we heard chatter about something like today going down, and some group trying to round up people without anyone hearing about it. The media, the feds like us, the military, the Justice League, we weren’t sure who or what. That got blown all to hell today, so now we think they’re working on their Plan B.”

“Any idea what _that_ might be?”

“No, not yet, but Mr. B said if we have anyone of interest cross over, get to them before ‘they’ do.” Katie knew ‘Mr. B’ as the DEO Director, Mr. Bones, whom she once called a ‘living, icky skeleton’ due to the man’s skeleton being the only visible thing about him besides the suits he wore (along with the cigarettes he always smoked). “Mr. B knows Gibbs are here, and said to assume other people do, too.”

“You think ‘they’ are super villains? Russians? Chinese? Khunds? Terrorists?” Larry shrugged his shoulders. “Government?”

Larry didn’t shrug his shoulders. “Maybe. The bugs I found are ones that used to be used by the CIA back in the day. Got one in an evidence bag in my pocket. We’re gonna look at it when I get back.”

“Okay, I believe you. But why on _Earth_ couldn’t you talk to me outside,” she sighed.

“One, if that guy is like the Gibbs I read about, he’d be worse to get through than Batman. Two, whoever ‘they’ are, they didn’t have time to put bugs everywhere. They didn’t bug the restrooms — we don’t _think_ they did anyway. This is the safest place to talk to you.”

“You think this was a rush job?”, she asked. “That entire operation outside had to take months to organize—“

“Yeah, but the bugs are scattered, like someone had hours notice and put them wherever.”

“Definitely a rush job…darn it!” She remembered who was waiting on her, and really hoped he had actually stayed put. “I gotta get back out there. You-know-who’s waiting – and his ‘Buggy-sense’ probably is on override.”

“It’s his _gut_ , Katie. Same thing Julie talks about all the time. I’d thought you had known that—“

“I know what a gut is, Larry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Mine is telling me he’s losing his mind by now. Just get behind me, I’ll tell him you’re with me, and we’ll work on the plan I’m about to propose to him.”

“Which is?”

“Wait for Marcus and Julie.”

“Just tell me where the explosion is so I can hide behind the furthest wall.”

“Oh my gosh! It was the freakin’ Clock King, Larry.”

Elsewhere in the stands, a man in FEMA clothing watched the crowd with a pair of binoculars; two minutes later, he saw Katie, Larry and Gibbs step back outside and make their way down towards the field.

He pulled out a smartphone and dialed a number; “Targets are on the move,” he said.

“ _The window of opportunity is closing fast_ ,” said a woman on the other line. “ _Whatever you’re going to do, get it done. The NCIS people are on the premises_.”

“Copy that,” the man said. 


End file.
